February 20, 2025 • 47 mins
This podcast episode of Mother Earth News and Friends features Nikola Alexandre and Nick Schwanz discussing the concept of rewilding properties. They explore the differences between rewilding and regeneration, emphasizing the importance of human involvement in ecosystem health and the need to shift from a "fortress conservation" mindset. The conversation also touches on the role of fire in land regeneration, the challenges of encouraging community acceptance of rewilding aesthetics, and practical first steps for homeowners looking to begin the regenerative process.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Climate change is terrifying, butthe way that we've been motivating
(00:05):
people to work on climate projectsis by making them look at something
scary that they're running from.
It's been a very stick based approach.
It's all about stop doing this,avoid doing that, run from this.
And Solar Punk offers a verydifferent approach to that, which
is essentially why don't we givepeople something to run towards?
Why don't we give them carrots thatincentivize them that life could
(00:26):
actually be better than it is today?
Not just, different permutations of worse.
And basically what we're just trying to dois make the idea of thinking about, caring
about, being involved in restorationas something that's really enjoyable.
Something that you canincorporate with parties.
Something that you can dance to.
Something that you can laugh about, right?
(00:48):
This doesn't have to be scary work.
It can actually bebeautiful, healing, fun time.
And that's what we're trying tofoster on the farm with our process
and honestly, so many of the peoplethat are surround us in this area.
Welcome to the Mother EarthNews and Friends podcast.
At Mother Earth News, for 50 yearsand counting, we've been dedicated
to conserving the planet's naturalresources while helping you conserve
(01:11):
your financial resources in this podcast.
We host conversations with expertsin the fields of sustainability,
homesteading, natural health, and moreto share all about how you can live
well wherever you are in a way thatvalues both people and our Mother Earth.
Good day, everyone.
I am Kenny Coogan and joining me on thisepisode of Mother Earth News and Friends
(01:34):
is Nikola Alexandre and Nick Schwantz.
Niko was raised by the desertsof New Mexico and the Alpine
Mountains of southern France.
Niko holds a Master's of Forestry anda Master's of Business Administration
from Yale University and foundedConservation International's
Ecosystem Restoration Program.
(01:56):
Nick is the co founder of Solar PunkFarms, a climate education center
in northern California focusedon engaging folks in bioregional
regeneration and land stewardship.
Today, we are talking aboutrewilding your property.
Welcome to the podcast, Niko and Nick.
(02:19):
Thank you for having us.
Niko, you are also the executive directorand co founder of the Shelterwood
Collective, a 900 acre forest in NorthernCalifornia dedicated to landscape
restoration, and community healing.
So why did you startShelterwood Collective?
(02:40):
And how is the restorationprocess going as of today?
Thanks, Kenny.
Appreciate it.
Wonderful to be here with you all today.
I grew up outdoors.
I was raised by forests and desertsand that was really a place of sanctuary
for me growing up as a little blackgay kid in these very rural areas.
And when I start to come of age andthink about the kind of work they wanted
(03:02):
to do in the world, I was bombardedby all the media around environmental
destruction that was happening, depletionof fisheries, extraction from our forests
pollution by plastics and whatnot.
So I was really trying to figure outhow I could do work that was focused on
term I often use is bringing life backto land, but that had a restorative, a
regenerative, a hopeful component to it.
(03:24):
So I spent a lot of time learningabout the ecology of land based
restoration and how do we go abouthealing our food webs and whatnot.
But a big piece of my interestwas also around communities.
My identity obviously is a big partof how I move through the world.
And when I came into the environmentalmovement, it was pretty dominated by a
very particular demographic of folk, oftenstraight white men had the monopoly of
(03:46):
what environmentalists could look like.
So as I thought about how I wantedto show up in this space and as I
reflected on the immense amount ofsafety that I felt growing up, I wanted
to create a space that was also asanctuary and a refuge for those of
us who are not often traditionallyrepresented in the environmental space.
(04:06):
And I would say in addition to thatthrough my ecological learnings, I think
a topic you'll hear both pretty, prettyextensively from Nick and I on today is
the central role of people and keepingecosystems healthy and maintaining them
for the long term, particularly as weget further and further along into this
particular moment of socioecologicalpolycrisis as the term goes.
(04:26):
And so as I was trying to weave allthese threads together, I came up with
what has now become Shelterwood, whichis a very intentionally community
specific form of large scale restoration.
Where we try to bring people in closeconnection to the outdoors to help
them feel safe in the outdoors whilealso fulfilling the role of humans
and managing our wild lands, ourwilderness spaces, our ecosystems.
(04:51):
And so as you mentioned here again,Shelterwood is about 900 acres.
It's about two and a half hoursnorth of the San Francisco Bay
Area, just north of the RussianRiver Valley where Nick is based.
And we have been caretakers of thisland for a about almost five years now.
Sheltered was formed in 2020.
We purchased the land.
I say we paid ransom on the land in 2021.
(05:12):
It's land that is traditionally ownedand managed by the Kashia Band of
Pomo Indians and have we've been thecaretakers for active caretakers,
I'd say for about four years.
And so in that capacity, we'vedone, we've put about 250 acres
of those 900 under restoration.
And we can get into the specificsof that later if that feels helpful.
And our plan is to get that numberall the way up to 900 by the end
(05:35):
of this year, through a variety ofpractices, but primarily looking at
controlled burns and fuels reductions.
A lot of that work is led by a black-and women-led cooperative of forest
technicians, a small enterprisethat is just getting started that
is really focused on diversifyingthe workforce of land stewardship
practitioners, really trying tocreate pathways for folks to make a
living out of restoration activities.
(05:57):
And it is guided by the Kashia andby Shelterwood Collective members.
The organization itself is comprisedof six people, five of whom are living
full time up on the land, up on theforest, so we have our eyes pretty
close to what the land needs and wehave a variety of partners who help
consult and guide the work as well.
And Nick, you and your husband areworking to turn optimistic futurism
(06:18):
into a tool for a change and helpfolks find and foster climate
positive values that they can bringback to their lives and communities.
So how does Solar Punk Farmsaccomplish those goals?
Solar Punk Farms is a, we call ita climate demonstration site or a
climate values demonstration site.
(06:39):
It's a place that my husband and Istarted about five ish years ago.
Prior to that we both lived in theBay Area and we both worked in more
conventional jobs in certain capacities.
My husband was a scientist,I was a strategy consultant.
And after a while we had turnedour eyes towards the climate
crisis, as many people do.
And we had done our best to usethe skills that we had to apply
(07:01):
to that crisis in a certain way.
So we changed our jobs and climatebecame sort of everything that we
thought and read and talked about.
But at a certain point, we felt likewe didn't have any connection to the
reason that the climate, that climatechange is a crisis, which is the land.
And so we fantasized about trying tofind some way that we could foster a
(07:22):
closer connection to land by doing somesort of a land regeneration project.
So we found a degraded piece of landin a town called Guerneville, which
is on the Russian River, about a halfan hour's drive from Shelterwood.
And our we are a much different scalethan what Niko and his team are managing.
We are just on about 10 acres ofland and that land was prior or
(07:44):
previously a horse property thatwas essentially entirely degraded.
They had brought in six inches oflake sand and just poured it over the
entire area to basically make it a deadspace where horses could run around.
And so this was a perfect opportunityfor us to take what we had read
in books and start exploring andtrying out ways of soil remediation
(08:06):
and bringing life back to the land.
So that was the first phase of it.
And I think what where we arereally different from Niko
and his team is Niko has.
He has a lot of really goodexperience and is bringing so
much knowledge to his space.
What we were trying to show isthat we actually didn't have a
ton of knowledge going into this.
And just by the good intentionsand a lot of work, we're trying
(08:29):
to learn as the land comes back.
And that's by design.
We wanted to show that, you don'thave to be necessarily perfect or
skilled or exactly fit for somesort of a regeneration project.
you just have to learn on the go andyou have to have the intentions to do it
and you have to put your heart into it.
And that's a, that's thestarting of what this is.
(08:49):
Over the last four years, we've reallyturned this more into an ecological
classroom where we have been tryingto bring as many people as we can onto
the land to learn with us and get theirhands dirty and feel that spending
an afternoon or a weekend doing landstewardship and regeneration is actually
an aspirational thing to do, right?
A lot of times people thinkabout going out into the garden.
(09:11):
They think about thatas like a chore or work.
And what we really want to dois redefine that kind of work as
the thing you want to be doing.
Because it's something thatreally humans are built to do.
And so to answer the first question thatyou said is, "How are we really trying to
bring optimistic futurism into this fold?"
So that's really where thesolar punk piece comes in.
Solar punk is a movementthat far predates our farm.
(09:33):
We borrowed from theequity of that movement.
We did not start it.
But Solar Punk is a a movement thatreally started out as a reaction
to cyberpunk and steampunk.
Both of those are storytelling mechanismsthat look at the future as this dystopian
wasteland, and they pit technology andnature against each other and say, okay,
this is what the future would look likeif those two things are opposing forces.
(09:55):
The folks who really got SolarPunk off the ground were like
why does it have to be dystopian?
And why does nature and technologyhave to be opposing forces?
What if they were complementary forces?
And what if the futureactually looked amazing?
And so that's the impetusof what solar punk was.
And it started out as a genre forIt's more of like an aesthetic.
There was a lot of architecturethat brought solar punk
(10:17):
principles into the fold.
And there were a lot of artistsand some fashion people.
And then it became more of a philosophy.
And since then it's become moreof like a cultural movement.
And the idea basically is that climatechange is terrifying, but the way that
we've been using, the way that we'vebeen motivating people to work on climate
(10:38):
projects is by making them look atsomething scary that they're running from.
It's been a very stick based approach.
It's all about stop doing this,avoid doing that, run from this.
And Solar Punk offers a verydifferent approach to that, which
is essentially why don't we givepeople something to run towards?
Why don't we give them carrots thatincentivize them that life could
actually be better than it is today?
(10:59):
Not just, different permutations of worse.
And basically what we're just trying to dois make the idea of thinking about, caring
about, being involved in restorationas something that's really enjoyable.
Something that you canincorporate with parties.
Something that you can dance to.
Something that you can laugh about, right?
(11:20):
This doesn't have to be scary work.
It can actually bebeautiful, healing, fun time.
And that's what we're trying tofoster on the farm with our process
and honestly, so many of the peoplethat are surround us in this area.
A lot of that resonatesreally strong with me, Nick.
I have a degree in animal behaviorand I was doing a lot of animal
shows at zoos and aquariums.
(11:41):
And we would always say that you can'ttell the audience what not to do.
You have to tell them what to do.
So you can't say don't stickyour hands up in the air and
grab the birds as they fly past.
You have to tell them if youkeep your hands in your lap, the
birds will come closer to you.
Or if you're talking about recycling,you have to tell them what to do.
(12:03):
Yep.
That's a great example.
So both of you mentioned the wordregeneration many times, but the
word of the day is rewilding.
Niko, can you tell me howrewilding relates to regeneration?
Are they the same?
Are they different?
Happy to kick us off here, and itmay be a somewhat controversial
(12:25):
take for your listeners.
I don't particularly love theterm rewilding, and here's why.
Oftentimes I think in the traditionalenvironmental movement, when we think
of the wild, we think of an area of apristine ecosystem that has never been
touched, that is you know, full of wildanimals and where the human element in
particular is completely not present.
And that became the foundationof modern conservation.
(12:47):
It's what is sometimes referredto as fortress conservation.
You find an area that is quote unquoteuntouched from the human element.
You put up some sort of fence,whether a physical fence or
legislative fence, and then yousay it's conserved, it's protected.
But across Turtle Island, across NorthAmerica, we have, we are now learning,
I would say, Western scientists arenow learning what a lot of Indigenous
people have been saying forever, thatin fact, human communities are what
(13:11):
keep ecosystems at their most optimum.
And when I say optimum, the mostbiodiverse, the most resilient in
this particular part of the world.
So the original sin of degradationfrom my perspective happened when
the indigenous communities and theirpractices were removed from many parts
of North America, and that's whenour ecosystem started to unravel.
(13:32):
And when people talk about rewilding, theyoften think again about how do we bring
back this idea of pristine wilderness,but the human element is often absent.
And so when I talk about rewilding, Itry to expand it a little bit and say
what does it mean to rewild our hearts?
What does it mean to rewild our ethos?
How do we, as people who have beenheavily regulated into a particular
(13:53):
kind of sociopolitical system, rewildourselves and show up in a way that
transcends a lot of the pretty rigidbarriers that we have, many of us
have been socialized to inhabit.
And that's also why I really likebringing queerness into my practice.
I think queerness is a frameworkthat allows us to blur boundaries.
and weave ourselves out ofsome of those rigid boxes.
(14:14):
And that is something that I try tobring to a lot of the folks who come up
here is problematizing the conventionalconcepts that we might have around what
is natural, what is wilderness what isqueer and using those things to come
up with new ways of being that are asNick was saying, joyful, playful, fun,
exciting, and not just as doom and gloom.
(14:35):
When I think about rewilding, it's mostlyabout how we orient ourselves to the
work and problematize the things thatare in front of us, and less about how
we bring back the rhinos or the elephantsor the cougars, whatever part of the
world you might be, because all of thatis constantly shifting and evolving and
our ecosystems are incredibly dynamic.
And so it's helpful to think about whatdoes a wild ethic actually look like in
(14:57):
your space without trying to pick a pointin time that may be idealized and towards
which you will be managing your land.
Nick you both work with youngpeople, but Nick, in your mission
statement on your website, you'retalking about an optimistic future.
So can you talk about when youwork with young people, are they
(15:19):
feeling a dread of climate change.
Are they feeling the burden on them?
Are they blaming the older generations?
Are they throwing theirhands up in the air?
Are they optimistic?
Yes, they're all of those things.
I think that, the unfortunate adagethat holds true over the last 30 years
(15:39):
right is that if you're not worriedthat you're not paying attention.
And I think that's justabsolutely the case.
That being said, we've now had basicallya full generation like the older
part of Gen X and all millennials,their job was to worry about this.
And I think younger people arestarting to get to the point now where
they're like, worry isn't working.
And so much of our future is going tobe dominated by what we see as like the
(16:05):
climate diluted version of human existencethat we have to start finding other tools.
And I think climate optimismis becoming a big one of those.
It's very natural to be scared aboutwhat you hear in the news, but there
are a lot of good folks who areproviding the tools and providing
the inspiration for the alternative.
We just had a great speaker comeup to the farm and do a little talk
(16:28):
recently, a woman named Britt Wray.
She's a professor at Stanford Universityand she also wrote a book called
Generation Dread, and it's all aboutwhat does this generation who have,
from the very beginning, been toldthat their future is going to be worse
than their present, which is the firsttime in human or in American history
(16:49):
that a generation has been told that.
How do they hold that andwhat do they do about it?
And so managing climate anxiety andturning that into productive optimism
is a hard task, but it's one that Ithink young people seem to be up to.
It's going to take a lot of organizing.
It's, again, in the lastthree months, I think.
There's been a whole nother setbackin how people are feeling about
(17:11):
the future, but I think in generaloptimism is a very natural thing that
people want to gravitate towards.
And even though our context is notmaking it the natural thing or the
default setting for people we findthat People take to it very easily.
You just have to give them the rightaccess to what nature can provide,
the right access to what communitycan provide and like the right
(17:33):
stimulus of joy and celebration.
I'm gonna echo what Niko said about,this is another great example of how
the queer community has a lot that itcan bring to this particular crisis.
If you say, wow, what community has,had to stare apocalypse in the face and
learn how to celebrate and be joyfuland find community in the face of that
(17:56):
despite the government doing nothingabout it like queer people, like that
meme that goes around you know whensomebody talks about a problem and
it's that meme going well first time.
That's I think what a lot of queerpeople feel about this right.
And so there's a lot that we can take fromthat community to show how you can create.
(18:17):
Rebellion and resistancethrough joy and celebration.
And yeah, young folks I think are justtaking to that like absolute naturals.
I have to mention that you're both inCalifornia and obviously earlier this
year we are having horrible wildfires.
Niko, can you talk abouthaving a master's in forestry?
(18:40):
I'm really into carnivorous plantsand many North American carnivorous
plants rely on fire ecology to burnthe invasive plants and the taller
shrubs and trees, but obviously wedon't want it to go out of hand.
So can you talk about how fire maybe hasa beneficial role in regenerating land?
(19:06):
From the 10, 000 foot level,California is a fire adapted ecosystem.
Fire, historically, is anatural part of our ecologies.
In many ways, our landscapes inCalifornia coevolved over 13, 000
years with indigenous communities veryintentionally lighting fires to keep
ecosystems in a certain kind of state.
(19:26):
That could be burning off the grasses inan area every fall to stimulate regrowth
in the spring, which would then bringin various kinds of critters that they
would hunt to support their livelihoods.
In other areas, it could be burningthe understory of a forest to reduce
the fuel load meaning the amount ofdry flammable material that is in that
forest so that if the lightning strikewere to happen, we don't have a giant
(19:48):
wildfire that would then completelydecimate that, that landscape.
And what the, colonial American approachhas been is removing those people and
those practices from our landscapes.
And so what then happens is we havea ecosystem that for 10, 000 years
coevolved with fire that was able tocreate a huge amount of biodiversity and
resilience because of the role of lowintensity regular burns in our ecosystem.
(20:12):
And now that's completely removed.
And so over 150, 200 years, wehave the buildup in this particular
case of lots of dry vegetation,lots of dry fuels, that are then
exacerbated by a dry, a drying climate.
Just saw a study this morning onlike the climate whiplash effect,
where we're going from lots andlots of rain to complete drying in
very unseasonable parts of the year.
(20:34):
And so the fires in L. A., the fires thathappened in Northern California a few
years ago, are direct byproducts of boththe removal of those practices, regular
burning, and the indigenous communitieswho, again, had an extraordinary
amount of science and knowledge onhow to do this, and a drying climate.
And so I think it's important to flagsomething that Nick said at the beginning
(20:56):
too we're all of us who are guests on thisland have really no idea what we're doing.
We're trying to figure it outto the best of our abilities.
Forestry science is in theconventional term, 70 years old, right?
What is 70 years compared to the10, 000 years of knowledge that
Indigenous folks had cultivated, right?
So it's really important forus to approach this work with
(21:16):
a huge amount of humility andconsequently for our policies.
to also reflect that.
As we're developing best practicesfor managing public and private
lands, we have to be prepared tocreate management regimes that
can co evolve and adapt over time.
And I think that is perhaps one of thecontributing factors to why we've been
seeing all these devastating wildfires.
We come in with a certainty of howthings are supposed to be, and then 10,
(21:39):
15, 20 years later, nature reminds usthat we, in fact, don't know everything.
So you mentioned taking a 10, 000foot view, but if we go even broader,
in terms of sustainability, whichsometimes is measured as like the
triple bottom line, I wanted to talkabout regeneration and rewilding
(22:00):
helps people, profit, and the planet.
And I think the easiest one is, ithelps the planet and of course like
numerous ways we can get a carbonsink, we can increase biodiversity of
plants and animals, we can have thatresiliency to fires or climate change.
But Nick, when you talk about how isrewilding or regeneration good for the
(22:27):
landowner?
What is that carrot for them?
Why would they bother notpaving their entire property?
Why should they be plantingthings and encouraging wildlife?
I want to state that I really love theway Niko talked about rewilding as a,
it's a manifestation of humans thinkingthat they are separate from nature.
(22:50):
Like the word wild is a big barrierbetween natural ecosystems in humans.
And so that, that term doesn'tnecessarily reflect that we are
another species of fauna interminglingwith this milieu of flora and fauna
and fungi and everything else.
And so I say that to start this answer tothis question, because that is something
(23:13):
that I think people need to realize whenthey live on land, is that they are part
of the ecosystem that surrounds them.
And I think regeneration isreally about building an ecosystem
around you that wants to be there.
And so that comes with tons of benefits.
Not only is it better for yoursoil and better for your health and
(23:33):
all these other things, but it'salso better for your aesthetics.
Plants that are native to acertain place thrive in that place.
They look healthier, they're beautiful.
They draw a lot of different critters in.
So you're bringing non-human communityonto your land by inviting them in
with all of these different strategies.
It's almost hard to limit this to onetopic because it's better in so many ways,
(23:56):
but if you are let's use an example of us.
We have the farm is about 10 acres.
When we started introducing moreregenerative strategies we saw
animals come back to the space, wesaw temperature differentials, which
actually made things cooler in the rightspots and warmer in the right spots.
We started being able to providefor ourselves with food that we
(24:19):
could either harvest or forage.
It provided more interestingtalking points for people to come
over and build community around.
It really is aboutreintroducing you, the human.
into the ecosystem that surroundsyou, and all of the co benefits
that come with that are insane.
When I say triple bottom line, sometimespeople think they're like three separate
(24:40):
pillars, but they're really theseoverlapping circles, because if it's
going to help with your sociability, it'salso going to help you make friends and
business partners, but it's also goingto help the planet all at the same time.
Niko, do you want to add anythingto how regeneration helps with
(25:01):
people, profit, or the planet?
Nick pretty much covered allthe things that I would add.
Maybe I'll just throw in onestat there since we were talking
about the connections betweenregeneration slash restoration,
rewilding and and climate change.
A lot of the work that we're doing atthe landscape level is to create models
for restoring the land, creating carbonsinks and protecting standing carbon.
(25:23):
And the data is showing that thosetwo practices, restoring landscapes
and protecting existing landscapescan contribute about one third of
the solution to the climate crisis.
And that's a really meaningful metric.
There's quite a lot of investments andcuriosities, I think, flowing towards
how we can leverage the health of naturalenvironments to fight climate change.
(25:44):
And there's a direct throughline there that I think is really
interesting in the climate space.
A lot of our readers havetwo acres to 50 acres.
And I was wondering, because you guyshave 10 to 900 acres can either of
you speak to some of the challengesassociated with regeneration?
(26:05):
Are we rewilding a propertyon a smaller scale?
Because if you own 900 acres,your neighbors might not
care how the aesthetic is.
But I'm thinking of the personwho's living in the suburb who
wants to invite the wildlife.
What do you guys think about that?
I'll jump in there.
(26:26):
I think there's a couple of thingsone and frankly one of the biggest
challenges that for some twisted reason,this idea of regeneration is like not
socially accepted in our current culture.
And so getting people to understandwhy you're doing what you're doing
is honestly, it's a challenge, butit's also a really great opportunity
(26:47):
to bring more people into the fold.
One of the things that we experienceda lot is We had neighbors who, for the
first couple of years, we would growcover crops and green manure things
to get more nutrients in the soil.
And we were growing nativesthat we would just let flower.
And then we would letthem sit in the winter.
We don't go and cut them back.
And we had neighbors constantlycoming over to us and saying,
Hey, your yard looks really messy.
(27:08):
And even though we do not live inlike the, like perfect picket fence
lawn type of town, we still had folksbasically saying, Hey my definition
of what beautiful is contrastingwith what you're doing in this space.
And you need to help mereconcile those two things.
And was easy to just be like, Hey,screw you this isn't your place back off.
(27:29):
But instead what we tried to dois like, why don't you come over?
And we can talk about what we'vebeen doing and why we're doing it.
And we would go and we'd show Hey, seeall this fennel that we didn't cut down?
If we go and look, we can seethat there's bugs sleeping in
this fennel over the winter.
And us cutting it down meanssaying that our aesthetic is more
important than these guys homes.
(27:51):
And so there was a lot of educationthat we had to do to really explain what
our definition of beautiful was and whymessiness can actually be aesthetic in
its own way and there's just a lot ofretraining to do that basically says
the way that humans build things is notthe natural definition of beautiful.
It is a capitalism derived aestheticthat has been dominating our
(28:16):
culture for the last hundred years.
And there is so much more interestingversions of Beauty and value that we
have to bring back to the mainstreamand help our neighbors appreciate.
And all it really takes is like a neighborcoming over and having a cup of coffee
with you and seeing how many hummingbirdsare buzzing by for them to finally get
it, but I think that biggest challengethat people face right now is changing
(28:39):
the paradigm with which people judge land.
That they're on.
And that can really just be tackledthrough lots of open hearted
conversation with folks and tryingto geek out and bring them into
the fold as much as you can.
I wrote that question because Iknow so many communities, not just
HOA, but communities at large inthe U.S. Who get upset when people
(29:03):
grow vegetables in their front yard.
So I was thinking when people are lettingthose flower heads keep them on there in
the winter for the birds and the insectsto eat, they might be equally mad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we have a hugeproblem with tidiness.
The lawn, the like green lawn is a perfectexemplar of what we're doing wrong when it
(29:28):
comes to managing the land that we're on.
And you'll see memes all the timenowadays where it's like you'll see a
green lawn and then you'll see a lawnfilled with all these native flowers.
And people are like, this sucks.
This is great.
But that has to happenat a grand level, right?
Not just at the meme level.
The flowers and the plantsand the animals, they're doing
their work just by existing.
They're creating their charm and castingtheir spells, but we have to do a lot
(29:51):
of work of outreach to our neighborsto not get them to tolerate the us and
the work that we're doing, but actuallyget them to like, see the value in
it and get them as excited as we are.
The Mother Earth News communitywe're definitely excited
about regeneration practices.
Nick, could you give uslike one or two things?
(30:12):
If somebody moves into a new propertyor they have an existing property
that as their non native yard withmaybe a small vegetable garden.
What is the initial step ofregenerating the property?
This was so hard for me,especially because I was an
ecological restoration newbie.
(30:32):
And I had worked in high pacedSilicon Valley for so long.
First thing you can do is youreally need to go and listen.
And like before you start makingdecisions and putting things in places
and, deciding that I'm the boss, youhave to go and be a part of the place.
So in permaculture, which is a way ofthinking, but it's very much just based
(30:53):
on traditional ecological knowledge.
It's a Oh, it's a Western packaging of alot of traditional ecological knowledge.
But one of the terms that they useis something called PATO, which is
protracted and thoughtful observation.
And they say, when you first be, orwhen you first find yourself on land,
find a sit spot where you can go to dayafter day at different times and just
listen and smell and look and taste andfeel and try to get a sense of exactly
(31:19):
what the layers of your space are.
And.
And, figure out where is the sunthe warmest and, where am I seeing
life that already exists so thatI can make sure I respect that.
So there's a thousand different waysto do that, but I think the most
important thing for you to do is.
Go to your space and reallylisten and understand and research
(31:41):
and be an observer for a while.
And then the next thing you can dois really do a lot of research on
what is native to your space, right?
What was here before you?
What has evolved to be here?
And then try to bring those two thingstogether before you start designing
designing strategies for the space.
But I'm sure Niko has a lot ofgreat thoughts on this as well.
(32:04):
Fabulous.
Rewilding small scale properties.
I don't think I have a whole lotto add to what Nick was sharing.
I think maybe a unsexy and notoften flaunted answer to that has
to do with political organizing.
Many environmental challenges arein fact not really about nature
or ecology at the end of the day.
They're about the relationshipbetween people, meaning, different
(32:26):
people to each other, and thenbetween the human community and
the rest of our environment.
And so one of the ways that we can,I think, just to reiterate what Nick
said working closely with neighbors,building collective groups, bringing
together folks who traditionallymay not be used to working together.
The private property regime hasbeen one of the most damaging
(32:47):
things ecosystems because itforces people, it breaks people up.
It stops us thinking and working.
As a organized unit and then it alsocreates these very weird artificial
lines in the forest that Really inhibitecological flows So I think again
we many of us myself included don'tnecessarily like to think about the
(33:09):
ways in which the politics of the city,state, region, country are interfacing
with the plants that we want to grow.
Like I got into this becauseI just want to tend to trees
and hide out in the forest.
But at the end of the day, for large scaleimpacts to be achieved, we all have to be
partnering and working closely together.
And that is true.
(33:30):
I think on the local scale of a coupleacres to even for us, we're 900 acres.
We are going to be burning in the falland doing those small scale controlled
burns that I was referencing earlier.
And we have a vineyard right next dooras one of our neighbors, and what can
happen in this part of the world issmoke in the fall can sometimes taint
the grapes, so we have to make sure thatwe're working really closely with our
(33:50):
neighbors to ensure that we know whentheir grapes are going to be in season
so that when we do our burning, whichbenefits everyone burning is going to
directly reduce the wildfire risk, but wedon't want to jeopardize their livelihood.
So there's always a need to work closelywith the folks who are around you, it
just manifests at different scales.
I believe those scalesshould be nested within them.
So not the first thing that I think a lotof us want to think of when we just want
(34:11):
to open our flower planting books, butshowing up to those local meetings is one
of the most important things you can do tocreate that resilience at the local level.
We're going to take a quick breakto hear a word from our sponsor.
And when we return, we'll be focusing onhow listeners can rewild and regenerate
their property wherever they are.
(34:33):
We are back with Niko Alexandre,co founder of the Shelterwood
Collective, and Nick Schwanz,co founder of Solar Punk Farms.
So both of you, before the ad break,we were talking about how people can
talk to the communities and get them onboard so they can regenerate their land.
(34:54):
And I mentioned that many of ourlisteners have two to fifty acres,
but some people do have hundredsand hundreds of acres, and they have
canyons where they're running sheepand goats and things like that.
Niko, how does somebody know thatthey do need to regenerate their land?
(35:14):
What are we regenerating?
That's a great question.
I love it.
And it goes back to, I think Nick'searlier point around listening.
You want to spend time getting a sense ofhow's your, how is your land functioning?
How are the different speciesthat are there interrelating?
A couple of examples there.
A healthy ecosystem is an ecosystem thatoverall, not to get into the details,
(35:35):
that is fairly resilient to shocks.
So if every winter you're seeing hugeamounts of landslides, then maybe there's
something that needs to happen, right?
If for us we are in a pretty high wildfirerisk area, and so as I was mentioning
earlier, as wildfires move through thelandscape, If we were to look outside
the window and see a really dense forestand imagine it, being lit on fire and
(36:00):
imagining all of that fire consumingall of our forest, and that's a sign
that maybe that forest isn't incrediblyhealthy because the shock of a wildfire
would then completely decimate it.
And so we then start to think through,okay, what are the things that we
could bring into this landscape?
What are the activities?
What are the species?
What are the regular practicesthat we could do to make this
ecosystem more resilient?
So I start with that and then I goback and I look to see historically who
(36:24):
might have been here when I say who Imean all the little critters that are
ecosystems again trying to using languageto break down the barrier between
wild and human, natural and unnatural.
So we refer to our non humankin as who's and not what's.
But trying to get a sense of who washere, looking at history, talking
to communities that have been herefor 10, 20, 30, 100, 10, 000 years,
(36:47):
getting a sense from them who was here.
And then also thinking aboutwho wants to be here, who is
showing up in this moment in time.
And looking at, for us at the landscapelevel, looking at climate projections,
as we see a shortening and shorteningof the rains, we're also thinking
about how the climate of the future isgoing to impact who wants to be here.
So right now, to give a concrete example,we have quite a lot of Douglas fir.
(37:10):
It's a very water tolerant species, butwe think in 50 years, the rain regimes
are going to be very different here.
So we're going to be encouraging andplanting a lot of oaks because the oaks
are happier in a drier type of landscape.
So listening, looking back, and thinkingforward is how we start to weave together
the practices of what a particular placethat we are inhabiting should look like.
(37:32):
Nick, can you talk about Solar Punk Farms?
It used to be a horse farm.
We love our listeners who havehorses, but did the former owners do
something specific that hurt the landor is it just the normal wear and
tear that livestock has on the land?
(37:55):
We love our horse people too for sure andlove horses in general, but I think in
this particular space the horse, whichwas not necessarily supposed to be in the
rainforests of Northern California thatone species dominated the entire space
and the humans were like, this is themost important thing and so we're building
everything around this one thing.
Everything was just basicallystructured around riding a horse, and
(38:22):
that was at the sacrifice of everyother living thing in the space.
It was to the point wherepigweed was barely growing,
and pigweed can grow anywhere.
And not to knock what the previous personwho was on this land thought or wanted,
but we just had very different goals.
We had talked to our neighbor wewere like, what grows well here?
And the direct quote from him was along time ago, my mom or my grandma
(38:45):
used to say in this space you haveto be really careful because if you
drop a seed you have to back up.
That's how fertile this land was.
And so to just see the sort ofdifference between that analogy and
where our land was it just gave us abig wide open palette for what could be.
I think what your goals are the mostimportant thing and what we really have
(39:07):
to do on a big societal level is makingsure people's goals are a little bit more
in line with what nature's goals are.
It feels to me like a Herculean task,even if you have a city lot or an acre.
When you're looking at it and somebodyjust has that non native turf grass and
you want to rewild something, you want toregenerate it, is there a priority list?
(39:30):
Like when you look at a land,a piece of land, do you need
to remove the invasives first?
Do you need to plant trees first?
Do you need to plant wildflowers first?
Do you have to have awater feature first?
Do you contact the extension officeor your state's native plant society?
How does someone even dip theirtoes into rewilding a property?
(39:53):
I might start on that one just becauseI know Niko's so much better at doing
the like broader societal level, andI think that's a beautiful place to
end, but the more granular in theweeds approach that I think is, we've
already talked about listening first.
And there is an entire otherworld going on underneath.
And so understanding what the historicalsoil types are, understanding what the
(40:14):
the biodiversity count, the organicmatter all of that kind of stuff
that represents good soil health.
That is your foundation of everything.
So really thinking about howyou can invest in that in the
best way possible is huge.
I would say that's where you start.
And then you really need to have a plan,have a vision for the space that is well
(40:34):
informed, researched share that visionwith other people that you that you
know and with other knowledgeable folks,qualified folks, elders in your area,
and really make sure that you have avision of what you're building towards.
It while it is fun to just like piecemealthings in here and there and make
changes willy nilly there's so muchmore long term impact, resilience co
(40:57):
benefits when you have a bigger visionthat you're working on bit by bit.
And so I think starting in that place isgoing to have really big cascading effects
to everything you do down the road.
The other thing is, it depends.
Everybody's different.
And I think it's really important toknow that there's no right answer.
I laugh, one of our mentors who's anabsolutely incredible teacher, always says
(41:19):
I'll ask if I'm doing something right.
And she always is that'snot the right question.
These plants have been aroundfor so much longer than you.
They don't really need you.
They're gonna be fine.
You're just here to help out.
So don't put the stress onyourself of messing up and
doing things right and wrong.
You are one of a billionfactors happening on your space.
(41:40):
So just be as best of a factor asyou can and let, give a little bit of
faith and trust to the other livingthings that are making a difference.
And just contextualize your rolereally well and respect others.
All right, Niko, where does one start?
I would fully underscore secondeverything that Nick just said.
(42:02):
Maybe, to add on to it a littlebit when I think about starting a
restoration or regeneration project,ultimately what you're restoring
are the relationships to place.
And that is how humansare relating to the place.
It's how the different species thatare there are relating to each other.
And again, echoing Nick, it's notreally about like, how do I get
(42:23):
every single puzzle piece right?
How do I build the Lego structureusing just that color and this color?
It's how am I actually showing up tothe work and doing the work in that way?
And there's one ecologicalterm that I really love.
And Nick, I might invite you to talkabout this, because I know you all have
done such a beautiful job around it,but this idea of ecological succession.
You're coming up to a property,if you're working with a property
(42:44):
that has been really significantlydegraded, whether it's with horses
or just there's been a lawn, a green,monocultural lawn there for 20 years.
You want to start with species thatwill enrich the species that are
coming after, which I think is alsoa great generational metaphor for
how we show up with one another.
You look for species that aregoing to be pretty hardy, that are
going to be quote, pioneer species.
Succession is a western term,so we're going to use western
(43:06):
concepts and language there.
But they're really hardy critters andplants that will make the soil more
receptive to the next generation.
And then each subsequent generationwill make the space richer and
richer and more conducive to life.
And that goes for the health ofthe soil, that goes for the health
of the waterways, it goes for thepollination aspects of your property.
(43:26):
So I think that's a concept thatcould be really interesting for
folks who are really trying tofigure out where do I start.
Just think about the ecologicalsuccession dynamics of your property.
Again, very particularly ecologicalterm, but there are plenty of
resources for pretty much every partof North America, whatever climatic
zone you are in, where pictures ofwhat needs to come first to make the
(43:47):
environment more fertile are there.
And again, it's notone particular species.
It's not one particular plan.
It's a group of species that arethemselves going to make the next species
that come happier and more resilient.
But Nick, I know y'alldid this in practice.
I don't know if y'all wantto talk about any of that.
I think you described that beautifully.
Again I'll probably give a morehigh level meta answer to that than
(44:08):
you were thinking I would give.
But I think that the thing that Ilearned when I first came here was.
My biggest tool was learning how toslow down and give things time and
let things do what they wanted to do.
I think the reason that, the termpioneer species got thrown out
is because they're going to showup and do their work regardless.
Like they, they love new spacesthat need to be regenerated and
(44:32):
they know what their work is.
And so some of thathappens really naturally.
So I agree with everything you said.
I don't have anything really to add withwhen it comes to like succession ecology.
The last little bit I would say ontop of that is, and this is a silly
small one, but learn the names.
It's really important.
I loved what Niko said about likeusing the proper framework for how you
(44:55):
think about other living things, right?
Like the animals are not what'stheir, who's plants are too.
And I think it's really importantwhen you're in a space to like.
Observe things, learn what their nameis, do research on them because you're
going to see that the land is generallygoing to try to heal itself a little bit.
And so observing and knowing what the,what things are called and taking off
(45:16):
your plant blindness to, a lot of timespeople have plant blindness to everything
that they didn't plant themselves.
But there are so many other creaturesout there that are doing their
thing and we have to know them all.
And so I think it's a really practical,ecological step, but also just a really
nice emotional step to really focuson learning what things are and seeing
(45:40):
them in the spaces that they're in.
I'm imagining a lot of the listenerswill want to increase biodiversity.
When you were justsaying the hummingbirds.
I have to stop everything I'm doing everytime I see a hummingbird in my backyard.
And the best spot forbiodiversity are ecotones, which
(46:01):
is that transitional space.
So if you have your non native lawnand you start having those pioneer
species and then you get a forest,that space between the forest and
the prairie is a really great placeto observe that unique wildlife.
So I wish everyone who's listeningto this podcast, good luck on
(46:22):
regeneration and restoring their land.
And thank you so much, Niko andNick, for a great conversation today.
Thanks so much for having us.
Thanks for joining us for this episodeof Mother Earth News and Friends.
To listen to more podcasts and getconnected on our social media, visit www.
(46:44):
motherearthnews.
com slash podcast.
You can also email usat podcast at Ogdenpubs.
com with any questions or suggestions.
Our podcast production teamincludes Kenny Coogan, Alyssa
Warner, and myself, Josh Wilder.
Music for this episode is thesong Hustle by Kevin MacLeod.
The Mother Earth News and Friends podcastis a production of Ogden Publications.
(47:07):
Until next time, don'tforget to love your Mother.
Climate change is terrifying, butthe way that we've been motivating
(00:05):
people to work on climate projectsis by making them look at something
scary that they're running from.
It's been a very stick based approach.
It's all about stop doing this,avoid doing that, run from this.
And Solar Punk offers a verydifferent approach to that, which
is essentially why don't we givepeople something to run towards?
Why don't we give them carrots thatincentivize them that life could
(00:26):
actually be better than it is today?
Not just, different permutations of worse.
And basically what we're just trying to dois make the idea of thinking about, caring
about, being involved in restorationas something that's really enjoyable.
Something that you canincorporate with parties.
Something that you can dance to.
Something that you can laugh about, right?
(00:48):
This doesn't have to be scary work.
It can actually bebeautiful, healing, fun time.
And that's what we're trying tofoster on the farm with our process
and honestly, so many of the peoplethat are surround us in this area.
Welcome to the Mother EarthNews and Friends podcast.
At Mother Earth News, for 50 yearsand counting, we've been dedicated
to conserving the planet's naturalresources while helping you conserve
(01:11):
your financial resources in this podcast.
We host conversations with expertsin the fields of sustainability,
homesteading, natural health, and moreto share all about how you can live
well wherever you are in a way thatvalues both people and our Mother Earth.
Good day, everyone.
I am Kenny Coogan and joining me on thisepisode of Mother Earth News and Friends
(01:34):
is Nikola Alexandre and Nick Schwantz.
Niko was raised by the desertsof New Mexico and the Alpine
Mountains of southern France.
Niko holds a Master's of Forestry anda Master's of Business Administration
from Yale University and foundedConservation International's
Ecosystem Restoration Program.
(01:56):
Nick is the co founder of Solar PunkFarms, a climate education center
in northern California focusedon engaging folks in bioregional
regeneration and land stewardship.
Today, we are talking aboutrewilding your property.
Welcome to the podcast, Niko and Nick.
(02:19):
Thank you for having us.
Niko, you are also the executive directorand co founder of the Shelterwood
Collective, a 900 acre forest in NorthernCalifornia dedicated to landscape
restoration, and community healing.
So why did you startShelterwood Collective?
(02:40):
And how is the restorationprocess going as of today?
Thanks, Kenny.
Appreciate it.
Wonderful to be here with you all today.
I grew up outdoors.
I was raised by forests and desertsand that was really a place of sanctuary
for me growing up as a little blackgay kid in these very rural areas.
And when I start to come of age andthink about the kind of work they wanted
(03:02):
to do in the world, I was bombardedby all the media around environmental
destruction that was happening, depletionof fisheries, extraction from our forests
pollution by plastics and whatnot.
So I was really trying to figure outhow I could do work that was focused on
term I often use is bringing life backto land, but that had a restorative, a
regenerative, a hopeful component to it.
(03:24):
So I spent a lot of time learningabout the ecology of land based
restoration and how do we go abouthealing our food webs and whatnot.
But a big piece of my interestwas also around communities.
My identity obviously is a big partof how I move through the world.
And when I came into the environmentalmovement, it was pretty dominated by a
very particular demographic of folk, oftenstraight white men had the monopoly of
(03:46):
what environmentalists could look like.
So as I thought about how I wantedto show up in this space and as I
reflected on the immense amount ofsafety that I felt growing up, I wanted
to create a space that was also asanctuary and a refuge for those of
us who are not often traditionallyrepresented in the environmental space.
(04:06):
And I would say in addition to thatthrough my ecological learnings, I think
a topic you'll hear both pretty, prettyextensively from Nick and I on today is
the central role of people and keepingecosystems healthy and maintaining them
for the long term, particularly as weget further and further along into this
particular moment of socioecologicalpolycrisis as the term goes.
(04:26):
And so as I was trying to weave allthese threads together, I came up with
what has now become Shelterwood, whichis a very intentionally community
specific form of large scale restoration.
Where we try to bring people in closeconnection to the outdoors to help
them feel safe in the outdoors whilealso fulfilling the role of humans
and managing our wild lands, ourwilderness spaces, our ecosystems.
(04:51):
And so as you mentioned here again,Shelterwood is about 900 acres.
It's about two and a half hoursnorth of the San Francisco Bay
Area, just north of the RussianRiver Valley where Nick is based.
And we have been caretakers of thisland for a about almost five years now.
Sheltered was formed in 2020.
We purchased the land.
I say we paid ransom on the land in 2021.
(05:12):
It's land that is traditionally ownedand managed by the Kashia Band of
Pomo Indians and have we've been thecaretakers for active caretakers,
I'd say for about four years.
And so in that capacity, we'vedone, we've put about 250 acres
of those 900 under restoration.
And we can get into the specificsof that later if that feels helpful.
And our plan is to get that numberall the way up to 900 by the end
(05:35):
of this year, through a variety ofpractices, but primarily looking at
controlled burns and fuels reductions.
A lot of that work is led by a black-and women-led cooperative of forest
technicians, a small enterprisethat is just getting started that
is really focused on diversifyingthe workforce of land stewardship
practitioners, really trying tocreate pathways for folks to make a
living out of restoration activities.
(05:57):
And it is guided by the Kashia andby Shelterwood Collective members.
The organization itself is comprisedof six people, five of whom are living
full time up on the land, up on theforest, so we have our eyes pretty
close to what the land needs and wehave a variety of partners who help
consult and guide the work as well.
And Nick, you and your husband areworking to turn optimistic futurism
(06:18):
into a tool for a change and helpfolks find and foster climate
positive values that they can bringback to their lives and communities.
So how does Solar Punk Farmsaccomplish those goals?
Solar Punk Farms is a, we call ita climate demonstration site or a
climate values demonstration site.
(06:39):
It's a place that my husband and Istarted about five ish years ago.
Prior to that we both lived in theBay Area and we both worked in more
conventional jobs in certain capacities.
My husband was a scientist,I was a strategy consultant.
And after a while we had turnedour eyes towards the climate
crisis, as many people do.
And we had done our best to usethe skills that we had to apply
(07:01):
to that crisis in a certain way.
So we changed our jobs and climatebecame sort of everything that we
thought and read and talked about.
But at a certain point, we felt likewe didn't have any connection to the
reason that the climate, that climatechange is a crisis, which is the land.
And so we fantasized about trying tofind some way that we could foster a
(07:22):
closer connection to land by doing somesort of a land regeneration project.
So we found a degraded piece of landin a town called Guerneville, which
is on the Russian River, about a halfan hour's drive from Shelterwood.
And our we are a much different scalethan what Niko and his team are managing.
We are just on about 10 acres ofland and that land was prior or
(07:44):
previously a horse property thatwas essentially entirely degraded.
They had brought in six inches oflake sand and just poured it over the
entire area to basically make it a deadspace where horses could run around.
And so this was a perfect opportunityfor us to take what we had read
in books and start exploring andtrying out ways of soil remediation
(08:06):
and bringing life back to the land.
So that was the first phase of it.
And I think what where we arereally different from Niko
and his team is Niko has.
He has a lot of really goodexperience and is bringing so
much knowledge to his space.
What we were trying to show isthat we actually didn't have a
ton of knowledge going into this.
And just by the good intentionsand a lot of work, we're trying
(08:29):
to learn as the land comes back.
And that's by design.
We wanted to show that, you don'thave to be necessarily perfect or
skilled or exactly fit for somesort of a regeneration project.
you just have to learn on the go andyou have to have the intentions to do it
and you have to put your heart into it.
And that's a, that's thestarting of what this is.
(08:49):
Over the last four years, we've reallyturned this more into an ecological
classroom where we have been tryingto bring as many people as we can onto
the land to learn with us and get theirhands dirty and feel that spending
an afternoon or a weekend doing landstewardship and regeneration is actually
an aspirational thing to do, right?
A lot of times people thinkabout going out into the garden.
(09:11):
They think about thatas like a chore or work.
And what we really want to dois redefine that kind of work as
the thing you want to be doing.
Because it's something thatreally humans are built to do.
And so to answer the first question thatyou said is, "How are we really trying to
bring optimistic futurism into this fold?"
So that's really where thesolar punk piece comes in.
Solar punk is a movementthat far predates our farm.
(09:33):
We borrowed from theequity of that movement.
We did not start it.
But Solar Punk is a a movement thatreally started out as a reaction
to cyberpunk and steampunk.
Both of those are storytelling mechanismsthat look at the future as this dystopian
wasteland, and they pit technology andnature against each other and say, okay,
this is what the future would look likeif those two things are opposing forces.
(09:55):
The folks who really got SolarPunk off the ground were like
why does it have to be dystopian?
And why does nature and technologyhave to be opposing forces?
What if they were complementary forces?
And what if the futureactually looked amazing?
And so that's the impetusof what solar punk was.
And it started out as a genre forIt's more of like an aesthetic.
There was a lot of architecturethat brought solar punk
(10:17):
principles into the fold.
And there were a lot of artistsand some fashion people.
And then it became more of a philosophy.
And since then it's become moreof like a cultural movement.
And the idea basically is that climatechange is terrifying, but the way that
we've been using, the way that we'vebeen motivating people to work on climate
(10:38):
projects is by making them look atsomething scary that they're running from.
It's been a very stick based approach.
It's all about stop doing this,avoid doing that, run from this.
And Solar Punk offers a verydifferent approach to that, which
is essentially why don't we givepeople something to run towards?
Why don't we give them carrots thatincentivize them that life could
actually be better than it is today?
(10:59):
Not just, different permutations of worse.
And basically what we're just trying to dois make the idea of thinking about, caring
about, being involved in restorationas something that's really enjoyable.
Something that you canincorporate with parties.
Something that you can dance to.
Something that you can laugh about, right?
(11:20):
This doesn't have to be scary work.
It can actually bebeautiful, healing, fun time.
And that's what we're trying tofoster on the farm with our process
and honestly, so many of the peoplethat are surround us in this area.
A lot of that resonatesreally strong with me, Nick.
I have a degree in animal behaviorand I was doing a lot of animal
shows at zoos and aquariums.
(11:41):
And we would always say that you can'ttell the audience what not to do.
You have to tell them what to do.
So you can't say don't stickyour hands up in the air and
grab the birds as they fly past.
You have to tell them if youkeep your hands in your lap, the
birds will come closer to you.
Or if you're talking about recycling,you have to tell them what to do.
(12:03):
Yep.
That's a great example.
So both of you mentioned the wordregeneration many times, but the
word of the day is rewilding.
Niko, can you tell me howrewilding relates to regeneration?
Are they the same?
Are they different?
Happy to kick us off here, and itmay be a somewhat controversial
(12:25):
take for your listeners.
I don't particularly love theterm rewilding, and here's why.
Oftentimes I think in the traditionalenvironmental movement, when we think
of the wild, we think of an area of apristine ecosystem that has never been
touched, that is you know, full of wildanimals and where the human element in
particular is completely not present.
And that became the foundationof modern conservation.
(12:47):
It's what is sometimes referredto as fortress conservation.
You find an area that is quote unquoteuntouched from the human element.
You put up some sort of fence,whether a physical fence or
legislative fence, and then yousay it's conserved, it's protected.
But across Turtle Island, across NorthAmerica, we have, we are now learning,
I would say, Western scientists arenow learning what a lot of Indigenous
people have been saying forever, thatin fact, human communities are what
(13:11):
keep ecosystems at their most optimum.
And when I say optimum, the mostbiodiverse, the most resilient in
this particular part of the world.
So the original sin of degradationfrom my perspective happened when
the indigenous communities and theirpractices were removed from many parts
of North America, and that's whenour ecosystem started to unravel.
(13:32):
And when people talk about rewilding, theyoften think again about how do we bring
back this idea of pristine wilderness,but the human element is often absent.
And so when I talk about rewilding, Itry to expand it a little bit and say
what does it mean to rewild our hearts?
What does it mean to rewild our ethos?
How do we, as people who have beenheavily regulated into a particular
(13:53):
kind of sociopolitical system, rewildourselves and show up in a way that
transcends a lot of the pretty rigidbarriers that we have, many of us
have been socialized to inhabit.
And that's also why I really likebringing queerness into my practice.
I think queerness is a frameworkthat allows us to blur boundaries.
and weave ourselves out ofsome of those rigid boxes.
(14:14):
And that is something that I try tobring to a lot of the folks who come up
here is problematizing the conventionalconcepts that we might have around what
is natural, what is wilderness what isqueer and using those things to come
up with new ways of being that are asNick was saying, joyful, playful, fun,
exciting, and not just as doom and gloom.
(14:35):
When I think about rewilding, it's mostlyabout how we orient ourselves to the
work and problematize the things thatare in front of us, and less about how
we bring back the rhinos or the elephantsor the cougars, whatever part of the
world you might be, because all of thatis constantly shifting and evolving and
our ecosystems are incredibly dynamic.
And so it's helpful to think about whatdoes a wild ethic actually look like in
(14:57):
your space without trying to pick a pointin time that may be idealized and towards
which you will be managing your land.
Nick you both work with youngpeople, but Nick, in your mission
statement on your website, you'retalking about an optimistic future.
So can you talk about when youwork with young people, are they
(15:19):
feeling a dread of climate change.
Are they feeling the burden on them?
Are they blaming the older generations?
Are they throwing theirhands up in the air?
Are they optimistic?
Yes, they're all of those things.
I think that, the unfortunate adagethat holds true over the last 30 years
(15:39):
right is that if you're not worriedthat you're not paying attention.
And I think that's justabsolutely the case.
That being said, we've now had basicallya full generation like the older
part of Gen X and all millennials,their job was to worry about this.
And I think younger people arestarting to get to the point now where
they're like, worry isn't working.
And so much of our future is going tobe dominated by what we see as like the
(16:05):
climate diluted version of human existencethat we have to start finding other tools.
And I think climate optimismis becoming a big one of those.
It's very natural to be scared aboutwhat you hear in the news, but there
are a lot of good folks who areproviding the tools and providing
the inspiration for the alternative.
We just had a great speaker comeup to the farm and do a little talk
(16:28):
recently, a woman named Britt Wray.
She's a professor at Stanford Universityand she also wrote a book called
Generation Dread, and it's all aboutwhat does this generation who have,
from the very beginning, been toldthat their future is going to be worse
than their present, which is the firsttime in human or in American history
(16:49):
that a generation has been told that.
How do they hold that andwhat do they do about it?
And so managing climate anxiety andturning that into productive optimism
is a hard task, but it's one that Ithink young people seem to be up to.
It's going to take a lot of organizing.
It's, again, in the lastthree months, I think.
There's been a whole nother setbackin how people are feeling about
(17:11):
the future, but I think in generaloptimism is a very natural thing that
people want to gravitate towards.
And even though our context is notmaking it the natural thing or the
default setting for people we findthat People take to it very easily.
You just have to give them the rightaccess to what nature can provide,
the right access to what communitycan provide and like the right
(17:33):
stimulus of joy and celebration.
I'm gonna echo what Niko said about,this is another great example of how
the queer community has a lot that itcan bring to this particular crisis.
If you say, wow, what community has,had to stare apocalypse in the face and
learn how to celebrate and be joyfuland find community in the face of that
(17:56):
despite the government doing nothingabout it like queer people, like that
meme that goes around you know whensomebody talks about a problem and
it's that meme going well first time.
That's I think what a lot of queerpeople feel about this right.
And so there's a lot that we can take fromthat community to show how you can create.
(18:17):
Rebellion and resistancethrough joy and celebration.
And yeah, young folks I think are justtaking to that like absolute naturals.
I have to mention that you're both inCalifornia and obviously earlier this
year we are having horrible wildfires.
Niko, can you talk abouthaving a master's in forestry?
(18:40):
I'm really into carnivorous plantsand many North American carnivorous
plants rely on fire ecology to burnthe invasive plants and the taller
shrubs and trees, but obviously wedon't want it to go out of hand.
So can you talk about how fire maybe hasa beneficial role in regenerating land?
(19:06):
From the 10, 000 foot level,California is a fire adapted ecosystem.
Fire, historically, is anatural part of our ecologies.
In many ways, our landscapes inCalifornia coevolved over 13, 000
years with indigenous communities veryintentionally lighting fires to keep
ecosystems in a certain kind of state.
(19:26):
That could be burning off the grasses inan area every fall to stimulate regrowth
in the spring, which would then bringin various kinds of critters that they
would hunt to support their livelihoods.
In other areas, it could be burningthe understory of a forest to reduce
the fuel load meaning the amount ofdry flammable material that is in that
forest so that if the lightning strikewere to happen, we don't have a giant
(19:48):
wildfire that would then completelydecimate that, that landscape.
And what the, colonial American approachhas been is removing those people and
those practices from our landscapes.
And so what then happens is we havea ecosystem that for 10, 000 years
coevolved with fire that was able tocreate a huge amount of biodiversity and
resilience because of the role of lowintensity regular burns in our ecosystem.
(20:12):
And now that's completely removed.
And so over 150, 200 years, wehave the buildup in this particular
case of lots of dry vegetation,lots of dry fuels, that are then
exacerbated by a dry, a drying climate.
Just saw a study this morning onlike the climate whiplash effect,
where we're going from lots andlots of rain to complete drying in
very unseasonable parts of the year.
(20:34):
And so the fires in L. A., the fires thathappened in Northern California a few
years ago, are direct byproducts of boththe removal of those practices, regular
burning, and the indigenous communitieswho, again, had an extraordinary
amount of science and knowledge onhow to do this, and a drying climate.
And so I think it's important to flagsomething that Nick said at the beginning
(20:56):
too we're all of us who are guests on thisland have really no idea what we're doing.
We're trying to figure it outto the best of our abilities.
Forestry science is in theconventional term, 70 years old, right?
What is 70 years compared to the10, 000 years of knowledge that
Indigenous folks had cultivated, right?
So it's really important forus to approach this work with
(21:16):
a huge amount of humility andconsequently for our policies.
to also reflect that.
As we're developing best practicesfor managing public and private
lands, we have to be prepared tocreate management regimes that
can co evolve and adapt over time.
And I think that is perhaps one of thecontributing factors to why we've been
seeing all these devastating wildfires.
We come in with a certainty of howthings are supposed to be, and then 10,
(21:39):
15, 20 years later, nature reminds usthat we, in fact, don't know everything.
So you mentioned taking a 10, 000foot view, but if we go even broader,
in terms of sustainability, whichsometimes is measured as like the
triple bottom line, I wanted to talkabout regeneration and rewilding
(22:00):
helps people, profit, and the planet.
And I think the easiest one is, ithelps the planet and of course like
numerous ways we can get a carbonsink, we can increase biodiversity of
plants and animals, we can have thatresiliency to fires or climate change.
But Nick, when you talk about how isrewilding or regeneration good for the
(22:27):
landowner?
What is that carrot for them?
Why would they bother notpaving their entire property?
Why should they be plantingthings and encouraging wildlife?
I want to state that I really love theway Niko talked about rewilding as a,
it's a manifestation of humans thinkingthat they are separate from nature.
(22:50):
Like the word wild is a big barrierbetween natural ecosystems in humans.
And so that, that term doesn'tnecessarily reflect that we are
another species of fauna interminglingwith this milieu of flora and fauna
and fungi and everything else.
And so I say that to start this answer tothis question, because that is something
(23:13):
that I think people need to realize whenthey live on land, is that they are part
of the ecosystem that surrounds them.
And I think regeneration isreally about building an ecosystem
around you that wants to be there.
And so that comes with tons of benefits.
Not only is it better for yoursoil and better for your health and
(23:33):
all these other things, but it'salso better for your aesthetics.
Plants that are native to acertain place thrive in that place.
They look healthier, they're beautiful.
They draw a lot of different critters in.
So you're bringing non-human communityonto your land by inviting them in
with all of these different strategies.
It's almost hard to limit this to onetopic because it's better in so many ways,
(23:56):
but if you are let's use an example of us.
We have the farm is about 10 acres.
When we started introducing moreregenerative strategies we saw
animals come back to the space, wesaw temperature differentials, which
actually made things cooler in the rightspots and warmer in the right spots.
We started being able to providefor ourselves with food that we
(24:19):
could either harvest or forage.
It provided more interestingtalking points for people to come
over and build community around.
It really is aboutreintroducing you, the human.
into the ecosystem that surroundsyou, and all of the co benefits
that come with that are insane.
When I say triple bottom line, sometimespeople think they're like three separate
(24:40):
pillars, but they're really theseoverlapping circles, because if it's
going to help with your sociability, it'salso going to help you make friends and
business partners, but it's also goingto help the planet all at the same time.
Niko, do you want to add anythingto how regeneration helps with
(25:01):
people, profit, or the planet?
Nick pretty much covered allthe things that I would add.
Maybe I'll just throw in onestat there since we were talking
about the connections betweenregeneration slash restoration,
rewilding and and climate change.
A lot of the work that we're doing atthe landscape level is to create models
for restoring the land, creating carbonsinks and protecting standing carbon.
(25:23):
And the data is showing that thosetwo practices, restoring landscapes
and protecting existing landscapescan contribute about one third of
the solution to the climate crisis.
And that's a really meaningful metric.
There's quite a lot of investments andcuriosities, I think, flowing towards
how we can leverage the health of naturalenvironments to fight climate change.
(25:44):
And there's a direct throughline there that I think is really
interesting in the climate space.
A lot of our readers havetwo acres to 50 acres.
And I was wondering, because you guyshave 10 to 900 acres can either of
you speak to some of the challengesassociated with regeneration?
(26:05):
Are we rewilding a propertyon a smaller scale?
Because if you own 900 acres,your neighbors might not
care how the aesthetic is.
But I'm thinking of the personwho's living in the suburb who
wants to invite the wildlife.
What do you guys think about that?
I'll jump in there.
(26:26):
I think there's a couple of thingsone and frankly one of the biggest
challenges that for some twisted reason,this idea of regeneration is like not
socially accepted in our current culture.
And so getting people to understandwhy you're doing what you're doing
is honestly, it's a challenge, butit's also a really great opportunity
(26:47):
to bring more people into the fold.
One of the things that we experienceda lot is We had neighbors who, for the
first couple of years, we would growcover crops and green manure things
to get more nutrients in the soil.
And we were growing nativesthat we would just let flower.
And then we would letthem sit in the winter.
We don't go and cut them back.
And we had neighbors constantlycoming over to us and saying,
Hey, your yard looks really messy.
(27:08):
And even though we do not live inlike the, like perfect picket fence
lawn type of town, we still had folksbasically saying, Hey my definition
of what beautiful is contrastingwith what you're doing in this space.
And you need to help mereconcile those two things.
And was easy to just be like, Hey,screw you this isn't your place back off.
(27:29):
But instead what we tried to dois like, why don't you come over?
And we can talk about what we'vebeen doing and why we're doing it.
And we would go and we'd show Hey, seeall this fennel that we didn't cut down?
If we go and look, we can seethat there's bugs sleeping in
this fennel over the winter.
And us cutting it down meanssaying that our aesthetic is more
important than these guys homes.
(27:51):
And so there was a lot of educationthat we had to do to really explain what
our definition of beautiful was and whymessiness can actually be aesthetic in
its own way and there's just a lot ofretraining to do that basically says
the way that humans build things is notthe natural definition of beautiful.
It is a capitalism derived aestheticthat has been dominating our
(28:16):
culture for the last hundred years.
And there is so much more interestingversions of Beauty and value that we
have to bring back to the mainstreamand help our neighbors appreciate.
And all it really takes is like a neighborcoming over and having a cup of coffee
with you and seeing how many hummingbirdsare buzzing by for them to finally get
it, but I think that biggest challengethat people face right now is changing
(28:39):
the paradigm with which people judge land.
That they're on.
And that can really just be tackledthrough lots of open hearted
conversation with folks and tryingto geek out and bring them into
the fold as much as you can.
I wrote that question because Iknow so many communities, not just
HOA, but communities at large inthe U.S. Who get upset when people
(29:03):
grow vegetables in their front yard.
So I was thinking when people are lettingthose flower heads keep them on there in
the winter for the birds and the insectsto eat, they might be equally mad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we have a hugeproblem with tidiness.
The lawn, the like green lawn is a perfectexemplar of what we're doing wrong when it
(29:28):
comes to managing the land that we're on.
And you'll see memes all the timenowadays where it's like you'll see a
green lawn and then you'll see a lawnfilled with all these native flowers.
And people are like, this sucks.
This is great.
But that has to happenat a grand level, right?
Not just at the meme level.
The flowers and the plantsand the animals, they're doing
their work just by existing.
They're creating their charm and castingtheir spells, but we have to do a lot
(29:51):
of work of outreach to our neighborsto not get them to tolerate the us and
the work that we're doing, but actuallyget them to like, see the value in
it and get them as excited as we are.
The Mother Earth News communitywe're definitely excited
about regeneration practices.
Nick, could you give uslike one or two things?
(30:12):
If somebody moves into a new propertyor they have an existing property
that as their non native yard withmaybe a small vegetable garden.
What is the initial step ofregenerating the property?
This was so hard for me,especially because I was an
ecological restoration newbie.
(30:32):
And I had worked in high pacedSilicon Valley for so long.
First thing you can do is youreally need to go and listen.
And like before you start makingdecisions and putting things in places
and, deciding that I'm the boss, youhave to go and be a part of the place.
So in permaculture, which is a way ofthinking, but it's very much just based
(30:53):
on traditional ecological knowledge.
It's a Oh, it's a Western packaging of alot of traditional ecological knowledge.
But one of the terms that they useis something called PATO, which is
protracted and thoughtful observation.
And they say, when you first be, orwhen you first find yourself on land,
find a sit spot where you can go to dayafter day at different times and just
listen and smell and look and taste andfeel and try to get a sense of exactly
(31:19):
what the layers of your space are.
And.
And, figure out where is the sunthe warmest and, where am I seeing
life that already exists so thatI can make sure I respect that.
So there's a thousand different waysto do that, but I think the most
important thing for you to do is.
Go to your space and reallylisten and understand and research
(31:41):
and be an observer for a while.
And then the next thing you can dois really do a lot of research on
what is native to your space, right?
What was here before you?
What has evolved to be here?
And then try to bring those two thingstogether before you start designing
designing strategies for the space.
But I'm sure Niko has a lot ofgreat thoughts on this as well.
(32:04):
Fabulous.
Rewilding small scale properties.
I don't think I have a whole lotto add to what Nick was sharing.
I think maybe a unsexy and notoften flaunted answer to that has
to do with political organizing.
Many environmental challenges arein fact not really about nature
or ecology at the end of the day.
They're about the relationshipbetween people, meaning, different
(32:26):
people to each other, and thenbetween the human community and
the rest of our environment.
And so one of the ways that we can,I think, just to reiterate what Nick
said working closely with neighbors,building collective groups, bringing
together folks who traditionallymay not be used to working together.
The private property regime hasbeen one of the most damaging
(32:47):
things ecosystems because itforces people, it breaks people up.
It stops us thinking and working.
As a organized unit and then it alsocreates these very weird artificial
lines in the forest that Really inhibitecological flows So I think again
we many of us myself included don'tnecessarily like to think about the
(33:09):
ways in which the politics of the city,state, region, country are interfacing
with the plants that we want to grow.
Like I got into this becauseI just want to tend to trees
and hide out in the forest.
But at the end of the day, for large scaleimpacts to be achieved, we all have to be
partnering and working closely together.
And that is true.
(33:30):
I think on the local scale of a coupleacres to even for us, we're 900 acres.
We are going to be burning in the falland doing those small scale controlled
burns that I was referencing earlier.
And we have a vineyard right next dooras one of our neighbors, and what can
happen in this part of the world issmoke in the fall can sometimes taint
the grapes, so we have to make sure thatwe're working really closely with our
(33:50):
neighbors to ensure that we know whentheir grapes are going to be in season
so that when we do our burning, whichbenefits everyone burning is going to
directly reduce the wildfire risk, but wedon't want to jeopardize their livelihood.
So there's always a need to work closelywith the folks who are around you, it
just manifests at different scales.
I believe those scalesshould be nested within them.
So not the first thing that I think a lotof us want to think of when we just want
(34:11):
to open our flower planting books, butshowing up to those local meetings is one
of the most important things you can do tocreate that resilience at the local level.
We're going to take a quick breakto hear a word from our sponsor.
And when we return, we'll be focusing onhow listeners can rewild and regenerate
their property wherever they are.
(34:33):
We are back with Niko Alexandre,co founder of the Shelterwood
Collective, and Nick Schwanz,co founder of Solar Punk Farms.
So both of you, before the ad break,we were talking about how people can
talk to the communities and get them onboard so they can regenerate their land.
(34:54):
And I mentioned that many of ourlisteners have two to fifty acres,
but some people do have hundredsand hundreds of acres, and they have
canyons where they're running sheepand goats and things like that.
Niko, how does somebody know thatthey do need to regenerate their land?
(35:14):
What are we regenerating?
That's a great question.
I love it.
And it goes back to, I think Nick'searlier point around listening.
You want to spend time getting a sense ofhow's your, how is your land functioning?
How are the different speciesthat are there interrelating?
A couple of examples there.
A healthy ecosystem is an ecosystem thatoverall, not to get into the details,
(35:35):
that is fairly resilient to shocks.
So if every winter you're seeing hugeamounts of landslides, then maybe there's
something that needs to happen, right?
If for us we are in a pretty high wildfirerisk area, and so as I was mentioning
earlier, as wildfires move through thelandscape, If we were to look outside
the window and see a really dense forestand imagine it, being lit on fire and
(36:00):
imagining all of that fire consumingall of our forest, and that's a sign
that maybe that forest isn't incrediblyhealthy because the shock of a wildfire
would then completely decimate it.
And so we then start to think through,okay, what are the things that we
could bring into this landscape?
What are the activities?
What are the species?
What are the regular practicesthat we could do to make this
ecosystem more resilient?
So I start with that and then I goback and I look to see historically who
(36:24):
might have been here when I say who Imean all the little critters that are
ecosystems again trying to using languageto break down the barrier between
wild and human, natural and unnatural.
So we refer to our non humankin as who's and not what's.
But trying to get a sense of who washere, looking at history, talking
to communities that have been herefor 10, 20, 30, 100, 10, 000 years,
(36:47):
getting a sense from them who was here.
And then also thinking aboutwho wants to be here, who is
showing up in this moment in time.
And looking at, for us at the landscapelevel, looking at climate projections,
as we see a shortening and shorteningof the rains, we're also thinking
about how the climate of the future isgoing to impact who wants to be here.
So right now, to give a concrete example,we have quite a lot of Douglas fir.
(37:10):
It's a very water tolerant species, butwe think in 50 years, the rain regimes
are going to be very different here.
So we're going to be encouraging andplanting a lot of oaks because the oaks
are happier in a drier type of landscape.
So listening, looking back, and thinkingforward is how we start to weave together
the practices of what a particular placethat we are inhabiting should look like.
(37:32):
Nick, can you talk about Solar Punk Farms?
It used to be a horse farm.
We love our listeners who havehorses, but did the former owners do
something specific that hurt the landor is it just the normal wear and
tear that livestock has on the land?
(37:55):
We love our horse people too for sure andlove horses in general, but I think in
this particular space the horse, whichwas not necessarily supposed to be in the
rainforests of Northern California thatone species dominated the entire space
and the humans were like, this is themost important thing and so we're building
everything around this one thing.
Everything was just basicallystructured around riding a horse, and
(38:22):
that was at the sacrifice of everyother living thing in the space.
It was to the point wherepigweed was barely growing,
and pigweed can grow anywhere.
And not to knock what the previous personwho was on this land thought or wanted,
but we just had very different goals.
We had talked to our neighbor wewere like, what grows well here?
And the direct quote from him was along time ago, my mom or my grandma
(38:45):
used to say in this space you haveto be really careful because if you
drop a seed you have to back up.
That's how fertile this land was.
And so to just see the sort ofdifference between that analogy and
where our land was it just gave us abig wide open palette for what could be.
I think what your goals are the mostimportant thing and what we really have
(39:07):
to do on a big societal level is makingsure people's goals are a little bit more
in line with what nature's goals are.
It feels to me like a Herculean task,even if you have a city lot or an acre.
When you're looking at it and somebodyjust has that non native turf grass and
you want to rewild something, you want toregenerate it, is there a priority list?
(39:30):
Like when you look at a land,a piece of land, do you need
to remove the invasives first?
Do you need to plant trees first?
Do you need to plant wildflowers first?
Do you have to have awater feature first?
Do you contact the extension officeor your state's native plant society?
How does someone even dip theirtoes into rewilding a property?
(39:53):
I might start on that one just becauseI know Niko's so much better at doing
the like broader societal level, andI think that's a beautiful place to
end, but the more granular in theweeds approach that I think is, we've
already talked about listening first.
And there is an entire otherworld going on underneath.
And so understanding what the historicalsoil types are, understanding what the
(40:14):
the biodiversity count, the organicmatter all of that kind of stuff
that represents good soil health.
That is your foundation of everything.
So really thinking about howyou can invest in that in the
best way possible is huge.
I would say that's where you start.
And then you really need to have a plan,have a vision for the space that is well
(40:34):
informed, researched share that visionwith other people that you that you
know and with other knowledgeable folks,qualified folks, elders in your area,
and really make sure that you have avision of what you're building towards.
It while it is fun to just like piecemealthings in here and there and make
changes willy nilly there's so muchmore long term impact, resilience co
(40:57):
benefits when you have a bigger visionthat you're working on bit by bit.
And so I think starting in that place isgoing to have really big cascading effects
to everything you do down the road.
The other thing is, it depends.
Everybody's different.
And I think it's really important toknow that there's no right answer.
I laugh, one of our mentors who's anabsolutely incredible teacher, always says
(41:19):
I'll ask if I'm doing something right.
And she always is that'snot the right question.
These plants have been aroundfor so much longer than you.
They don't really need you.
They're gonna be fine.
You're just here to help out.
So don't put the stress onyourself of messing up and
doing things right and wrong.
You are one of a billionfactors happening on your space.
(41:40):
So just be as best of a factor asyou can and let, give a little bit of
faith and trust to the other livingthings that are making a difference.
And just contextualize your rolereally well and respect others.
All right, Niko, where does one start?
I would fully underscore secondeverything that Nick just said.
(42:02):
Maybe, to add on to it a littlebit when I think about starting a
restoration or regeneration project,ultimately what you're restoring
are the relationships to place.
And that is how humansare relating to the place.
It's how the different species thatare there are relating to each other.
And again, echoing Nick, it's notreally about like, how do I get
(42:23):
every single puzzle piece right?
How do I build the Lego structureusing just that color and this color?
It's how am I actually showing up tothe work and doing the work in that way?
And there's one ecologicalterm that I really love.
And Nick, I might invite you to talkabout this, because I know you all have
done such a beautiful job around it,but this idea of ecological succession.
You're coming up to a property,if you're working with a property
(42:44):
that has been really significantlydegraded, whether it's with horses
or just there's been a lawn, a green,monocultural lawn there for 20 years.
You want to start with species thatwill enrich the species that are
coming after, which I think is alsoa great generational metaphor for
how we show up with one another.
You look for species that aregoing to be pretty hardy, that are
going to be quote, pioneer species.
Succession is a western term,so we're going to use western
(43:06):
concepts and language there.
But they're really hardy critters andplants that will make the soil more
receptive to the next generation.
And then each subsequent generationwill make the space richer and
richer and more conducive to life.
And that goes for the health ofthe soil, that goes for the health
of the waterways, it goes for thepollination aspects of your property.
(43:26):
So I think that's a concept thatcould be really interesting for
folks who are really trying tofigure out where do I start.
Just think about the ecologicalsuccession dynamics of your property.
Again, very particularly ecologicalterm, but there are plenty of
resources for pretty much every partof North America, whatever climatic
zone you are in, where pictures ofwhat needs to come first to make the
(43:47):
environment more fertile are there.
And again, it's notone particular species.
It's not one particular plan.
It's a group of species that arethemselves going to make the next species
that come happier and more resilient.
But Nick, I know y'alldid this in practice.
I don't know if y'all wantto talk about any of that.
I think you described that beautifully.
Again I'll probably give a morehigh level meta answer to that than
(44:08):
you were thinking I would give.
But I think that the thing that Ilearned when I first came here was.
My biggest tool was learning how toslow down and give things time and
let things do what they wanted to do.
I think the reason that, the termpioneer species got thrown out
is because they're going to showup and do their work regardless.
Like they, they love new spacesthat need to be regenerated and
(44:32):
they know what their work is.
And so some of thathappens really naturally.
So I agree with everything you said.
I don't have anything really to add withwhen it comes to like succession ecology.
The last little bit I would say ontop of that is, and this is a silly
small one, but learn the names.
It's really important.
I loved what Niko said about likeusing the proper framework for how you
(44:55):
think about other living things, right?
Like the animals are not what'stheir, who's plants are too.
And I think it's really importantwhen you're in a space to like.
Observe things, learn what their nameis, do research on them because you're
going to see that the land is generallygoing to try to heal itself a little bit.
And so observing and knowing what the,what things are called and taking off
(45:16):
your plant blindness to, a lot of timespeople have plant blindness to everything
that they didn't plant themselves.
But there are so many other creaturesout there that are doing their
thing and we have to know them all.
And so I think it's a really practical,ecological step, but also just a really
nice emotional step to really focuson learning what things are and seeing
(45:40):
them in the spaces that they're in.
I'm imagining a lot of the listenerswill want to increase biodiversity.
When you were justsaying the hummingbirds.
I have to stop everything I'm doing everytime I see a hummingbird in my backyard.
And the best spot forbiodiversity are ecotones, which
(46:01):
is that transitional space.
So if you have your non native lawnand you start having those pioneer
species and then you get a forest,that space between the forest and
the prairie is a really great placeto observe that unique wildlife.
So I wish everyone who's listeningto this podcast, good luck on
(46:22):
regeneration and restoring their land.
And thank you so much, Niko andNick, for a great conversation today.
Thanks so much for having us.
Thanks for joining us for this episodeof Mother Earth News and Friends.
To listen to more podcasts and getconnected on our social media, visit www.
(46:44):
motherearthnews.
com slash podcast.
You can also email usat podcast at Ogdenpubs.
com with any questions or suggestions.
Our podcast production teamincludes Kenny Coogan, Alyssa
Warner, and myself, Josh Wilder.
Music for this episode is thesong Hustle by Kevin MacLeod.
The Mother Earth News and Friends podcastis a production of Ogden Publications.
(47:07):
Until next time, don'tforget to love your Mother.
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